'It would be a nice touch to go to RCB' - Alyssa Healy picks her choice of franchise for inaugural Women's Premier League

The BCCI last week revealed the franchises that had won their bids and will be fielding their respective teams in the inaugural Women's Premier League. The dreams of several female cricketers and women’s cricket enthusiasts were fulfilled when the BCCI made the announcement as the board put the dream of an Indian women's Premier T20 tournament into reality.

Several cricketers from across the world have registered themselves for the first-ever Women’s Premier League (WPL), and many have also expressed their desire to represent a particular team. The five franchises participating in the tournament are Gujarat, Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, and Lucknow, and existing franchises Delhi Capitals and Royal Challengers Bangalore have acquired a women’s team too.

The WPL will allow a team to have five overseas players in their combination, unlike the men’s tournament which allows a maximum of four. As a result, more overseas players will get a chance to be a part of WPL. Australia’s wicketkeeper-batter Alyssa Healy spoke candidly about her preference for a WPL franchise and confirmed her participation in the WPL during an interview with 7 Cricket alongside cricketer husband Mitchell Starc at the Australian Cricket Awards.

The anchor asked “Are you going to go to RCB (in the WPL) like Mitch (Starc) or where do you want to go?”, to which Healy replied:

“I have to wait and see where we end up after the auctions, but obviously it would be a nice touch to go to RCB.”

The board members of the Royal Challengers Bangalore franchise revealed that they restricted themselves from getting a team at other ongoing men’s franchise-based tournaments so as to get a team at the Women’s Premier League, and they were successful in doing so as they bagged the Bengaluru-based team for a whopping INR 901 crore.

The inaugural WPL is expected to get underway in March after the completion of the eighth edition of the Women’s T20 World Cup. The global tournament is set to begin on February 10 in South Africa, and the summit clash is scheduled for February 26.